Dr. George Tiller, One More Murdered Abortion Provider

Kittywampus doesn’t usually aim to provide breaking news (there are thousands of sites that do it better), but I’m so disturbed by this that I have to say something.

Dr. George Tiller, one of a handful of doctors who performed late-term abortions in this country, has been murdered in cold blood. Cara at Feministe reports that he was shot dead as he was entering his church this morning in Wichita:

Dr. Tiller was one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country.  He had previously been shot, his clinic burnt down, harassed by ideological anti-abortion attorney generals, and threatened with death countless times.  We’ve written about his many trials and tribulations here numerous times. Still, Dr. Tiller continued to provide abortions to women who desperately needed them, to save their own lives or health, or due to tragic fetal deformities.  He put the health of women above his own life.

And now he is dead.

(More from Cara here.)

That little detail of him being on his way to church? It says so much about the ruthlessness of the hardline anti-abortion movement, their adamant refusal to recognize that those who condone abortion are ethical, moral, and often religious people.

I’d thought – hoped – that the wave of anti-abortion violence had ebbed. As Cara notes, it had been over a decade since the last anti-abortion murder. I figured that the less-crazy wing of their movement had prevailed, recognizing that murder is not politically persuasive to the people in the mushy middle. Guess I was wrong, though it only takes a single fanatic with a gun. Rhetoric like “murder of innocents” and “the worst Holocaust the world has ever seen” is guaranteed to produce at least a few such fanatics.

I’m sad and angry on behalf of Dr. Tiller, his family, and all the other abortion providers who’ll have to live in even more fear.

You shouldn’t have to be a hero to provide a needed medical service.